This study provides an assessment of the features that, operating "inside the black box", shape the evolution of the Italian economy. In the first section the focus is placed on the functioning of the labour market at the aggregate level. The picture described suggest that the Italian labour...

After steady employment growth since the 1990s, Spain has experienced the sharpest increase in unemployment among OECD countries during the crisis, amplified by structural problems of the labour market. Very high de facto severance payment of permanent contracts has resulted in a rigid dual...

We investigate the impact of exchange rate movements on wage determination in unionised labour markets. Using a simple model of international oligopoly, we show that organised labour has a rational incentive to accept lower wages in the face of a currency appreciation. This proposition is...

I discuss some key issues raised by behavioral economics for better understanding the working of the labor market. Amongst the key points in this paper are: (i) a revised modeling of the labor supply curve, with a specific focus on the target income approach (ii) elaborating on the importance of...

A striking feature of the past few decades has been the development of wage-determination models that assume that labour markets are imperfectly competitive. This paper discusses two such models (trade unions and oligopsony), although there are many more. It also asks if imperfectly competitive...

In this paper we present and analyze the IMF’s labor market recommendations for advanced economies since the beginning of the crisis, both in general and specifically in program countries. Our analysis is informed by our reading of the theoretical and empirical literature on the design of...

At first blush, most advances in labour demand were achieved by the late 1980s. Since then progress might appear to have stalled. We argue to the contrary that significant progress has been made in understanding labour market frictions and imperfections, and in modelling search behaviour and...

Unemployment in South Africa is extremely high and unevenly distributed, being concentrated among young less-skilled blacks. The legacies of apartheid can explain part of the increase in labour supply and inability of the economy to absorb it which produced the extreme levels of unemployment,...